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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Jingle Jingle

I heard yesterday on the news that someone popped a diamond ring into one of those kettles manned by bell ringers. This followed the news over the weekend that another generous soul had given them a huge gold coin, a rare one, for the eighth year in a row.

Wouldn't you love to be able to do that? What a wonderful feeling, to stuff all that largesse in a kettle and just walk away. The afterglow has to be superb. Those gift givers must feel like that scene in Ghost, when Oda Mae Brown puts a check worth millions into the hands of a nun.

Alas, I don't have diamond rings cluttering up the place, nor gold coins, nor checks worth millions, so I have to resort to smaller means.

Oh, I just want to support so many good causes. I think that the ability to be able to be able to do some real good for a charity or a group of people is the ultimate luxury. Forget the Neiman Marcus customizable cupcake car.

Don't know if I can quite pull this off...

So, here is what I could do, though: I collected two books and two stories for kids, and put them in one collection, and donated the royalties to Oxfam. One book is by me, and it's about getting coal for Christmas. Except, of course, coal from the North Pole is magic...

The other book is by Shaun Allan, the creator of Sin and Zits n Bits. He donated Rudolf Saves Christmas, a story that is a holiday version of Hoodwinked, where Rudolf is sent to jail.

Connie J Jasperson wrote the Christmas Tree, a sci fi story about Santa finding a family in space (I LOVE that concept!)

And Nicole Antonia Carson donated The List, a tale of a girl who has to defend her Goodness in the North Pole court. Nicole does a lot on the stage, so it's no surprise that her story is very visual and very, very funny.

My thanks to all those authors and to Lisa for their very, very generous donations. They are worth so much more to me than a cupcake car, or even Oda Mae's check.

If you have 99 cents rattling around in your purse, or behind the sofa cushions, will you consider buying this collection of stories? They are all G rated and a lot of fun, and they are available on Kindle. And all of the proceeds go to help families and kids through Oxfam's international efforts.

Now I wish I could ring a bell for you. But I will say: Thanks so very much!